Roland A-33 MIDI Controller Keyboard

very hard to program this keyboard, and sometimes it doesn't do what you think it should. There's an editor program on the net you can use that makes programming it very easy (it's written in Tk so it's interesting to set up, though wasn't hard).

good keyboard for performance, bad for studio and composition.

for performance, you can spend a lot of up front time configuring the patches. using the a33 editor (the tk i mentioned) is great for this.

for home studio, composition, recreation, you need more creativity and freedom for exploring your gear's patches and controllers, don't do it through the a33. You'll spend all your time referring to the manual (or a cheatsheet you tape to the top of the a33 if you're smart) for how to program. I got to a state where I had one patch on the a33 that was pretty general so I could manually tweek the settings on my gear, of course that means you have to remember your favorite patches, or take the time to set them into the a33.

as a controller for desktop composing (fruityloops, reason, cakewalk, sonaar, cubase) the a33 is simple because you only have to set up one a33 patch to support the basics, and your software sequencer does all the remapping for you. (i.e. midi channel, controller, etc..)

One it is setup (i.e. in a performance), the keyboard is dead simple and great to use.

horrible setup/programming. i'm going to sell this keyboard and get an m-audio, or something else. no on-screen display so you have to keep the state in your head as you program it. there's no hand holding with this synth!

only one controller (the "data" slider - as if it's something special that you probably wouldn't use very often?!?!?).

The pitch bender is not smooth, has a huge bump in the middle. granted this is typical of most keyboards (even expensive ones). but it sucks anyway... try a clavia nord for how pitch bending should be done.

no aftertouch? that sucks. but the keyboard is kind of inexpensive. still, it's missing this feature, which I love for performance. if you need it, you need it, and this doesn't have it.

there is a modulation bend thing on the pitch bender you can remap to aftertouch.

data slider. would rather have a knob, easier to tweak. it's only one data entry, I use it for CC's like cutoff, res, pan, volume, etc... you can see already only one data slider is not enough. a bank of 8 would have been better (another reason to use an maudio keyboard they tend to have lots of knobs these days...)

nice footpedal support, one for expression, and one for sustain. if you're using this to simulate a grand piano or organ, these are neat.

nice midi in/out. 2 outs. one in.

does not have a progam up/down

support for banks (Msb/Lsb) is difficult, but possible, doesn't always seem to take. works well through a33 editor though.

see below for link to the a33 editor...

no sounds.

it's solid.
i've used this in the studio, and on stage...
hasn't failed me.

haven't dealt with it.

on the other hand, there's a free editor out there for the a33 which makes the a33 very programmable! http://www.uttis.de/a33/ search for "Roland A33 Editor/Librarian" on google.

i'm looking to sell it. I just need something more usable for studio use. programming it should be easy without a manual (or memorizing obscure button pushes). lack of onscreen display, dedicated programming buttons or thought to polish of the programming workflow really hurts this for me. but then, I would program this almost daily if I could. the small number of knobs, and lack of aftertouch is another reason.

for some people doing more traditional music, this keyboard is great, if they don't mind a little hassle setting it up every time their sound pallete needs to change...

As stated in some previous reviews a-33 is a pain to initially set up.
Once set up it is one of the best live controllers I have seen. I use two in a live setting with 2 jv1010s;one with country expansion and one with 60's and 70's expansion. I place them very close together on an apex two tier stand so they almost resemble a two manual organ. That way I have access to 32 instant sounds and can make splits on the fly by just changing sound for entire keyboard. The easy way to set up patches is to save sounds to a user bank, then use the a-33 to change patches (no bank change problems that way). I have even installed LED flush mount lights to see better in some clubs.

When using all types of sounds weighted action is a hindrance so this semi-weighted action is just about right.

no onboard sounds

never had a major problem with two units playing about 80 gigs a year in five years of ownership. owned 2 a-30s before this and had similar results.

Never had to call.

The a-33 does exactly what it was designed to do. Great keyboard for playing live due to quick on the fly patch changes, portability and long battery life.

Wow! What a maroon the previous reviewer must be. If you want realistic piano action -- sorry... it just doesn't exist for $350. The closest thing under $500 is a Fatar! Not a very difficult piece of gear to operate unless you're an idiot! Roland manuals typically could be more expressive, however.

No sounds -- it's a light-weight, cheap controller with the simplest of functions. No aftertouch.

No sounds. Feel is okay -- especially at this price point. I too amd a classical pianist. However, I do not purchase non-weighted, inexpensive controllers to perform Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies! Need realistic piano feel? Get an A-90 for another $1500 or so. The purpose for a controller like this, to me (an educated consumer, not a maroon) is for situations needing a light-weight, portable controller with 76 keys. That being said, for it's price point, it is quite good. However, Fatar has recently come out with an 88-key non-weighted controller that is even lighter and more portable... and has a better feel.

I have never, EVER had a Roland product fail.

Roland's products have been extremely reliable for me. This is an older controller, even even its successor seems to have been surpassed by Fatar. A great piece of gear if you get it cheaply and you're not a retard expecting it to feel like a grand piano.

I don't like Roland at all, I prefer Korg, but Korg has not midi-controllers in such price category. Kurzweil has much more expensive keyboards, that's why I bought Roland A-33. (I owned A-30 before)
At my opinion A-33 (as A-30) is VERY difficult to use. To change something exept first 32 programms, transposition, volume & keybord shifting, u must to create some kind of spell, using a lot of buttons & commands. I hate it!

Keyboard action are average. (I'm a classic pianist & prefer to play something more similar Steinway like Oberheim MC 2000 or something else), but sometimes it's cool to use light easy non-piano keyboard for electric jazz or fusion imrpovisation a-la Chick Corea or Herbie Hancock. Not for acoustic jazz playing of coarse!
A-33 has no expansion option (maybe ability to buy & to connect another pedal?:) Even AC adaptor & midi cable not included! But u can INSTALL a "great" pupiter (Oh, Lord! It's a computer keyboard & any computer-based sequencer has a notation function! Why I mast pay for this plastic/metallic ugly monster??) But now I'm a proud owner of 2 pupiters!! (from A-33 & A-30)
It has no aftertouch (but it seems to me, that's good! Have u ever play aftertouched grand piano? And when u play hard u can easily get aftertouched sounds even u don't want to get it! Use wheels or joysticks 4 modulation!)
But A-33' joystick (bender) is bad!
So short way for modulation! I prefer wheels!
U can only use bender in up or right-left direction.

It react to velosity like a cheap synthesizer (Korg DS-8, Kawai K4 or something else.) It's NOT a piano!

It seems to me keyboard action became worse than before.

N/A
But my manual has no some pages!

If it were stolen or lost, I'll buy Kurzweil or Oberheim midi controller with extended piano functions...
Maybe I'll do it before my A-33 lost or stolen:))

The patches are time consuming to set up depending on how specialized your rig is, but the flexibility is there to accommodate different configurations. Ease of use in live situations is good because of the individual patch select buttons.

Light weight and portable. This is the reason I bought the A-33. At this price point I don't think you can find anything comparable in quality and configurability. Flexible patch setups. Two selectable midi outs. Key shape feels good to play.

I'd like to mention one problem that has been reported in some of the reviews below. When I first got the A33, I hooked it up to a Roland JV880 module and noticed that when I cycled the Chorus ON/OFF button on the A33 (or selected a different patch), the Chorus effect on the JV880 would be turned OFF, and would not turn ON again. After some experimentation, it appears that the A33 default setting for Chorus Depth is a value of zero. Apparently, the JV880 interprets a command of Chorus ON with a value of zero to mean 'turn Chorus Off'. I was able to get around this by reprogramming the A33 patch settings as follows:

Fix: For each patch, and for both UPPER and LOWER of each patch, make the following EDITs to set and save the Chorus Depth value.

Select a PATCH
? Press Edit UPPER button
? Press EDIT button
? Press DataSlider Assign button
? Enter 93, press Enter button % Slider sends Chorus Depth
? Move DATA SLIDER to max % send max depth value
? Press DataSlider Assign button
? Enter 7, press Enter button % reset Slider to volume
? Set DATA SLIDER to desired intial volume
? Press and hold WRITE, Press desired PATCH button %save setting

Most of the time I use the A33 as a 'lower keyboard' for a Roland VK7 organ, and it's fine for that. It's less satisfactory when used for playing piano sounds. The light touch and poor range of velocity sensitivity makes it unsuitable for solo piano or accompaniment. It just doesn't provide enough control over nuance. For rock and blues, I can live with it.

Even as light as it is, it seems to be pretty tough. I've owned other Roland equipment that has held up well.

Never dealt with them.

I'd probably get something else if it were lost or stolen, just to try something new. I also have an SL760 controller, and I prefer the A33. I've been playing 40 years and my intention was to create a light and compact setup for weekend bar gigs. The VK7, A33, piano module and synth module provide that. I love the portability and hate the touch sensitivity. I wish the footpedal jack was assignable to Volume ctlr rather than Expression ctlr only.

My needs for a controller keyboard are fairly simple:

I play left hand bass, so I need at least one split point with the ability to set separate MIDI channels for the two halves. A bass sound is always on the lower half, while I change the patch for the upper half depending upon the song.

I play pretty standard pop music, so I need only about 32 different patches (ie, piano, guitar, sax, trumpet, organ, etc) for the upper half. One important consideration: I switch among these patches *while* I'm playing a song, so I need to be able to switch a patch very quickly with one hand. The A-33 has 16 dedicated buttons for switching patches, so it makes a "one button patch change" possible.

The A-33 meets those above goals.

As mentioned, it is almost impossible to program this thing due to the absense of any LCD screen. So I wrote myself a utility for the computer to program the A-33. If you run Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP, then you can obtain a free copy of my software A-33 Editor at http://www.borg.com/~jglatt (under "Software Programs"). Using this utility, the A-33 is very easy to program.

It is unfortunate that the A-33 keyboard does not support pressure (neither Channel Pressure nor PolyPhonic Aftertouch) although you can program the lever to output pressure.

And its velocity sensitivity does not utilize the full range of MIDI velocity.

I would have preferred pressure support and full velocity implementation over other features it has, such as two MIDI outputs and the octave transpose.

I dropped this off of a table onto a hard floor. One of the keys inside of it popped loose and broke. I opened up the unit and glued the plastic key back together. It survived and worked.

On the other hand, the wallwart (external power supply) included with it died. I hate those.

I don't think that this is nearly as sturdy as past Roland products I've used, but nowadays, it seems like all companies are making products whose construction is less than "heavy duty".

If I were to buy another MIDI controller, I'd certainly look at other models that are out there (although I may not necessarily find one more suitable than the A-33. It's not that I dislike the A-33, but I do see ways that it could be improved upon). But I chose the A-33 because I didn't want to have to poke at 4 or 5 keys just to change a patch.

The controller is very easy to play, but there is no LED/LCD display, so programming is difficult.

Keyboard action is superb! Very light, but weighted! And the 2 midi outs are also great. Maybe they must put more sequencer keys on it, but that isn't the reason fot buying this thing. The only less is the lack of a display and the 3 velocity levels. I prefer 7 or 8 velocity levels.

No sounds! It's a midi controller

Dude, this thing is great and very dependable!

Roland, this is the only Japanese concern which don't know what service mean thesedays.

I'm a lucky man, because I'd get it for 200 bugs incl. flightcase.
The new price is a little bit high. The biggest less of the machine is the lack of any display, but Roland fixed this on the A-37.
The keyboard action is just great, but the 3 velocity levels give the machine not a change for us to playing piano on it.
But still: It's a great machine!

The A33 added an expression pedal jack from the A30. There is no "joystick" controller as one user suggested but a paddle for pitch and mod. Unless you assign modulation control to the slider you'll have to carry a custom wedge of rubber to keep the paddle "engaged" for continuous activation (I use a piano tuner's string mute). Suggestion is to set up a default "patch" upon power up completely neutral (no splits, chorus, reverb etc) Unless you do so you will be sending chorus, reverb and other settings to your modules. I have an A30 setup in a school lab and it was too complicated for students so I just went ahead and put in only two "patches". Single zone channel 1 no processing- patch 2 was for channel 10 no zones etc. Careful how you work the paddle because it is costly to replace.

After programming, It is great live with 16 patches from different modules INSTANTLY ACCESSIBLE AT THE PRESS OF ONE button - somebody ought to tell the designers of other master controllers how important this is!!!

It means I don't need several keyboards anymore, and the thing lets me have two sounds per patch as a keyboard split or layer.

The keyboard's feel it perfect for me, suitable for rock, classical and twidley stuff - far superior to my synth keyboards.

On the downside programming is a pain, for instance to create and write new patch you need to press dozens of buttons with no visual feedback. Just a small LCD display with maybe a numeric keypad and cursors would have helped - I have this on a 50pence calculator keyring so it wouldn't have put up the A33's cost much. Just something to show channel, bank, program, etc as you enter it would save alot of farting around. Also an emagic sound driver would have been nice
- DOES ANYONE KNOW OF ANY?

Its a master controller with six octave span, semi weighted keys, 32 patch memeories, 2 midi outs, in and thru.

The patch memories are GS standard so from a single module you could in theory select from up to 16000 sounds via bank and program change messages. I don't know if that means it's going to talk to everything - though no problems with my kit.

Battery powered (6 AAs) - you have to buy AC adapter seperately - which is a bit tight. Same goes for a case. The battery check however is briliant - each patch button has a light representing three hours of use left - so you know where you stand before a gig.

Looks pretty sturdy - though I worried stick like expression control may be more vulnrable to a knock than the more usual pitch and mod wheels.

Three year warrantly and a good website, can't complain yet.

Ive been relying on an array of flimsy five octave keyboards and modules and just wanted some thing larger and that would let me vamp with octave spans on my left hand whilst still being light enough for cheesy synth solos.

It's a great live solution giving me instant access to patches and beter control over all.

The feel is perfect for me, it exudes quality and robustness whist be easily portable, just managing to fit side ways into the back of a ford escort (try getting a hammond and leslie into the back one of these - lots of fun I can tell you).

My concerns are with the programming - this is hard work and I'm uneasy about whether GS is going be suitable for everything.
In designing something like this you wonder to what extent pro and semi pro performers are consulted.

Here's some suggestions Roland, if you come to places like this....

A small LCD screen and numeric keypad for programming.
An emagic sounddriver included.
Power pack included (or better still built in mains lead).
Less logos on front - they get pulled off by postits and stickers used to keep track of patches.
Perharps let the body double up as hard case with handle and removable lid to cover the keys.

Never lose 16 led lit buttons for instant patch select, and keep the battery check - these are great!!!

Overall it suits my requirements though not ideal.

I live in a trailer and have a pretty small setup but wanted a keyboard that took almost no room and had 76 keys (the 88 key models I saw were out of the question.) Using a Roland SC-7 simple sound module and a small home stereo I got a great deal of what I needed to take piano lessons and work on compositions. Stinky manual until I went to a Roland clinic and the rep made it all simply - I wish he would have written the manual. Please guys, let the engineers tell it to a WRITER! Would be a 10 except for the manual.

Great action. All I wanted is piano sound and action. Very enjoyable to play. More polyphony than I need for the most complex chords. I do not play with my forearms or my feet as this would be the only way I could exceed the A-33's polyphony. I am not interested in complication my simple setup but now am tempted to get a Mac PowerBook and do some notation and computer composition - would be a great help over doing notation with a pencil and blank sheets. I do not have the room to add the newer sound modules (Roland does have a new Grand Piano only sound card that kicks butt!)

I play Jazz, Classical, Show tunes. I will be growning with this keyboard for a long time. The question here should be: how well can you play? Great players will get a great deal out of this keyboard. No aftertouch gets it a nine here.

I'm sure it will be passed around my family long after I'm gone.

Phone service was great! I hear that this was not always the case but they answered my questions knowledgeably and instantly.

I made a cloth dust cover for it with black color and fishing flies pattern on it - looks great. Wish Roland offered ready-made dust covers with elastic around the edge. I have two violins and take violin lessons regularly as well. This keyboard fits in nicely with a purist as possible environment - I love the thing and have never seen anything else quite so compact and easy to live with. I hate nothing about it - it's helping me grow musically and that's what I wanted.

THis unit is so simple to use I hooked it up and began playing in under 5 minutes. I then recreated all the onboard patches to get around the trouble described by some other reviewers. I can only wonder if they didn't read the manual?

Great features for the price. Joystick, MOD/Aftertouch contol, 2 8va up/down shift + transposition; in short, almost everything you could need ( i miss a realtime controller knob, but then again, with a Peavey 1600x to the MIDI in, this becomes the world's best 76 key setup in a VERY compact size. Perfect for Multimedia studios.

N/A

All Roland gear is built like a tank. Don't spill liquids in it or get it dusty and it will last forever.

Although I never called about this product I give Roland CA a 9 for general responsiveness and a great support line available during regular business hours.

Would definately replace with identical unit. This is part of a total studio filled with gear. it controls a Roland 1080, 2080, Ensoniq QR, etc.

This keyboard has gotten mostly mixed reviews here and I guess I'll be adding another one although I have to say overall I'm pretty happy with it because a 76-key controller with good action and weighing only 17 pounds for under $500 is a cool thing even with its limitations.

Others have noted how complicated it is to enter commands and customize presets. Basically you have to sit there with the manual in front of you and walk through the many non-intuitive steps for performing most functions and this can really test your patience. Not very friendly towards those last minute changes as you're rushing off to a gig. But I give it decent marks on ease of use because the functions it does have are available through dedicated buttons so, once you've programmed it, doing something like switching a split on or off during live performance is easy.

I like the action on this puppy. Semi-weighted. When I like the action on a keyboard its usually for piano or organ/synth but not both. The action on this keyboard actually comes close to splitting the difference and that's not a common thing. Mostly I use it for organ/synth and I like it for that even though the keys have alot of travel relatively speaking. The texture and size of the keys is good.

At 17 pounds this is the lightest 76-key that I know of. This is important because I am usually using it as the controller that sits on top of a weighted action keyboard. Not that I'm worried about crushing what's underneath, just that I'm interested in keeping my overall burden down to a reasonable level. I will use it on battery power for gigs, but with the power supply at home.

As a controller it is not very flexible. You can change the controller assignment for the one slider, but not for the pedal. That's a drag.

Here's the main thing I don't like, the A-33 seems to send weird midi information in ways I can't control. This occurs with some modules but not others. For instance, with my Voce V5, it sends an "18" controller message which has the effect of switching the chorus/vibrato to a certain setting (not the one I want). I don't know how to shut that off. There's stuff going on here that I can't get a handle on. So far, nothing too problematic. One of the reviewers below said you can't use this for anything besides Roland gear and I think that's an overstatement but I do think that before buying this keyboard if you can actually try it out with the modules you'll be using it with, that would be advisable.

No onboards. For under $500, that sounds about right.

I mentioned above that the action is not so bad for use with piano sounds. However, I find that the sensitivity to variations in velocity leaves something to be desired.

Its been reliable for me, and I've given it a fair bit of use thus far.

This is far from being the end-all of controller keyboards, but depending on your purposes it might serve you well. I wanted something with 76 keys. The Fatar line doesn't give you the on-the-fly adjustment options of the A-33, and I definitely appreciate having those. The Kurzweil SP-76 is a much more sophisticated controller. But both the Fatar and Kurzweil are heavier and only operate with a wall wart. I don't like the action on the Roland A-70 and its also very heavy for its size. And I like the action on the A-33 better than any of these others. For these and other reasons, the A-33 continues to be my favorite organ/synth controller, in spite of its limitations and the ghosts in the machine. At this point, until something better comes along, if the A-33 were lost, I would go out and get another.

Lots of button pushing. Although it could be a great controller keyboard, the problem is controlling other products eg.. Korg, Computer interfacing.

The 76 keys and semi-weightedness are nice but the lack of controlability is the real issue.

N/A

Although it hasn't broken down, can't say it has been reliable for what i intended to use it for.

Useless

Although I have not been impressed with this keyboard overall, I would be willing to communicate with other users who may have been able to get around it's linking problems.

A lot of button pushing to change a few parameters such as keyboard velocity, but since I'm not using it live, I have not serious complaints.

The main features of this midi-controller is the great semi-weighted keyboard action for the price. The multiple midi-ports are good too.

N/A

With the power supply, this is a very dependable unit.

Haven't had the need to us it.

This is an excellent unit for the price. The piano-sized keyboard gives you room and range, and the transposition feature allows for quick changes of key.

Probably works great for Roland gear but don't try using it with anything else. The fact that this was designed around a Roland standard and not an accepted industry standard means a living nightmare for someone who simply wants a board to drive various racks. If you plan to use it as a controller for anything but a roland product forget it. Buy a Fatar.

If you press the black and white keys a MIDI note on message is sent. If you take your finger off the key a MIDI note off message is sent. That's about as feature laden as it gets, unless, of course, you are hooked up to a Roland synth in which case it's exactly what you need. The thing runs on batteries and they were too cheap to include so much as a wall wart power supply.

Sounds: it goes "click" (this is a controller, not a synth.) Brand new some of the keys tended to stick and the action was uneven across the board.

I picked this up in a bind, my Fatar controller after years of faithful service and abuse went on the blink and a key went bad (I mean the thing was ABUSED) but the Roland had only two gigs and was retired to an emergency backup status. I'd be afraid to trust this thing for anything more than a backup considering the sticky keys mentioned above.

Oh, I've got lots of experience with Roland. Can I vote ZERO? I won't elaborate more, I'd be here all night.

I'm admittedly biased against roland. I have bought many, many Roland products. See, the problem is they are the greatest thing today and the first thing to become obsolete tomorrow (with a few classic exceptions.) The biggest problem as I have said is that this keyboard is meant to drive roland synths. My E-mu boxes moaned the whole time they were hooked up to it and my computer wasn't much happier. This unit served its purpose briefly and now collects dust, like all my other roland gear. If I had it to do over again in the same bind I would have just bought any old MIDI compatible used synth instead. Forget about all the buttons, I found them utterly useless and ended up plopping my rack next to me on stage and manually changing patches on the racks (yeah, what fun!)

This is a relatively easy keyboard controller to use. There's no LCD so no scrolling through menus is reequired for programming. This is only a controller, and is not expandable like the A70/90, so there are no sounds. Editing patches is not difficult but does require lots of key presses which makes this not an ideal controller for making patch changes within your sound source on the fly. For example, I use a JV1010, and to change the bank and program it requires from 10-12 button pushes depending on the patch number. It takes 4-6 to change within the same bank. So you see it can take many seconds to change and if your on a dark stage without a little lamp light or anything seeing the numbers could be difficult making it take even longer. Thankfully there are patches, but only 32. The manual is better than I was led to believe, all of the essential functions are explained adequately enough to get you up and programming quickly. I felt as if I knew everything I needed to know and was creating presets within a coulple of hours. The manual comes in 6 different languages and mostly concentrates on use with GS modules, which is what it's designed for, but it works with anything, especially other Roland stuff, such as the JV series.

The keyboard action is great on this board. There are 76 full sized, closed front, semi-weighted, velocity sensitive keys, no aftertouch unfortunately. The keys themselves are a bit different from any other Roland keys, the sharps are nice and flat and kinda square and are not shiny and slick. I really like this for a synth, it helps me lessen those little finger slips that I often get on regular rounded top slick shiny keys. Plus, the naturals are closed front, like on a piano. When you look at the front of the board it looks like real piano keys. IMO Roland should use this type of keys on more of their keyboards, especially the VK organs. Hammond does it with their XK-2 to the acclaim of organ players, so Roland should maybe take a hint from them. All in all a nice compromise between synth action and piano action. Controller features are numerous. They include two MIDI outs, plus a MIDI IN and Thru, and sustain and expression pedal ins. Two independent zones that can be split or layered, a programmable data slider, a Roland style pitch/mod lever, which curiously can be turned off, and sometimes needs to be turned on. I don't know why you wouldn't want the pitch lever to be inactive since you can't program any other controls to it. Three velocity curves are available, transpose, octave up and down buttons, sequncer start/stop, plus 32 presets with store all of your parameters for both the upper and lower zones. When I bought it I thought there were going to be actually 64 presets because they say it comes loaded with 32 GS programs and 32 user programs when in actuality the 32 user programs must overwrite the GS programs. No big deal for me since I don't use GS but just to clarify for those who do. 32 presets doesn't give you a lot of freedom for extra sounds in addition to those you need to use live but it's adequate for me anyway.

No sounds, it's merely a controller.

It seems pretty solid and Roland has a great reputation for very reliable gear. The only problems I could possible forsee are buttons and sliders wearing out, or key contacts getting dirty, but that would probably be a long way off.

I'm not sure that Roland even has customer support. I guess it does since I hear of people calling them, usually to not much help. I've never needed to contact them, but it really upsets me that if ever I did I would be getting unsatisfactory assistance. For the amount of money paid for their gear I think we deserve qualified customer support.

This is a great controller for someone who is not extremely demanding and doesn't need lots of complex functions. Certainly this board doesn't compare featurewise to the more expensive A-70 and the ultimate controller the A-90ex. In my experience you almost never get everything you want in one package, the only thing I could ask for is maybe another data slider, aftertouch, and the ability to accept Roland VE series expansion boards. With the semi-weighted keyboard and full sized keys I find myself plaing much better than with my previous synth action controller, and that's a one of the best features of all.

This master keboard is a bit fiddly to set up but once my patches were in the hardest thing to do is to remeber my chord changes!

I think for the lack of phisical things you can do with a mother keyboard it does them very well. The fact that it has function keys escaltes it beond the compatition like FATAR. I cant imagen stopping playin to change a patch by pressing a button and then a key, that's stupid!

This is my keboard now. (yes the only one) it's a bit disposable at the price but easy enough to fix (no help from roland so far!) I have giged it up and down the uk for two years now and I's only developed one problem that was fixed in an hour.

In the UK they can't even get my name right. I cracked the PSU and found it impossible to get another one at short notice. I warned them I needed it in four days they didn't even order it for 5 (I cancelled it and fixed the old one) The keyboard also lost it's touch sencitivity on one key (Middle D!) after a quote for neearly a third of it's cost I took it apart my self. It only needed cleaning. And to get a manual is #20 why you can get yammah manuals on-line

It mate butifully with my TG300 module. The actions good and the weight (phisicaly!) It could do with a software editor, but other than that it's ok. I would definatly buy another one. I'm due to play on the milenium celebrations so I'll try to keep some batteries in it just incase the power fails due to the Milenium Bug!

Pretty straightforward. I only control one module with it at the moment so I've not been too demanding. It took a long time to figure out how to change the preset buttons' effects. Finally one night I decided to give it another try but couldn't find the English manual. I tried the Spanish manual and suddenly it became clear. Since I still haven't found the English manual I don't know whether I just had the right insight into the instructions or if the Spanish is actually better.

It's not quite a fully-weighted keyboard but was the closest I could come in my price range. Even with 76 keys I occasionally fall off the left side of the keyboard so some day I'll come up with some cash and buy an A90 which is by far the best controller that I've played.

No sounds. It's a controller

Never had a problem. It's worth spending the $20 for the external power supply more so you don't have to worry about having dead batteries because you forgot to turn it off.

I tried to get an answer to my programming question and never heard back from Roland.

Depending on how much money I had I'd probably get the A90, but in my price range this is the clear winner.

Pretty straight-forward. Easy to use.
Indeed, a typical Roland manual, with sections for about eight thosand different languages. I'm glad English was included. The manual spells out the fine tuning features.

Action is very nice. The semi-weighted feel is real versatile. Not a fully weighted piano feel, but not a plastic synth feel either. 76 full sized keys, and programmable pitch bend/mod joystick.
The split/layer outputs to two different MIDI channels on a single MIDI port. Unlike the A-30, the A-33 has a second MIDI port, making it simple to drive two separate modules. Fits like a glove for the Sound Canvas (or probably any GM synth.) All displays are LEDs on the buttons.
Lightweight. Easy to carry around. Battery operated, or external 9V supply can be used.

NA

Seems pretty tough. Haven't had it long enough to tell.

NA

I use this with the Roland Sound Canvas. It's a perfect fit. If you want a decent controller that's affordable, this is a good choice. You can get these new for around $495, or used for between $350-$400

Very easy but I'm glad I have the users guide.....

The stock Chorus is way-overkill ...almost detuning..but it can be tweaked....I think ?

Seems reliable. For roadwork I think an internal power supply with a normal power cord would be more reliable...then the wallwart but then the cost would be more.....

I've heard some bad comments but my inquiries and response for JUNO II users guide and replacement keypads about 5 years ago was good.

mine was a returned store item /original packaging etc. so I got a great discount The average price seems to be about $499. new in box

It's quite easy to use after you get in to it. The manual is a typical Roland manual.

All of the 76 half weighted keys feel nice. It has all MIDI capabilities but After Touch. Rhe nice thing in it is that you have full control over your modules. It has two MIDI out ports, so you can control two different groups of midi equipment... Can also be used with batteries as the power supply. The keyboard makes an irritating noise when you play eg. with headphones on or with low volume.. ..but it doesn't matter so much... I guess you can't make a keyboard absolutely silent.. ;-)

Great for rock music. It's not a piano but it's not a light keyboard either. Very fun to play. Velocity is great. No aftertouch though.

I can rely on it 100%. Yes, I'd use it on a gig without a backup.

No opinion... Ibought it from a private person..

Yes, I' buy it again. It's certainly worth every penny I paid for it. I love the feel of those 76 half weighted keys. Wish it had Aftertouch. It's a great help in composing..